Beaumont Medical BuildingThe
Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts museum
-- a beautiful modernist building by Japanese architect Tadao Ando --
has risen in the Beaumont's place; it opened in 2000.

It is encouraging that the complex wasn't torn down simply for the purpose of lowering
the city's vacant building figures, but I still must question why this particular site was
needed. There's an equally large vacant lot right across the street. Perhaps the
rehab costs were too high; perhaps there was pressure to get rid of the "eyesore";
maybe the Pulitzer organization didn't want a massive vacant building as their neighbor.

The Beaumont, to my casual glance at least, could have served any number of
much-needed purposes in the scheme of Midtown's revival: residential apartments,
office space, academic uses. It is a shame that nothing of the sort happened.